Erxi Wu, assistant professor of pharmaceutical sciences, and Fengfei Wang, research associate of pharmaceutical sciences, co-wrote the article, "Alterations of TP53 are associated with a poor outcome for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma: evidence from a systematic review and meta-analysis,” which will be published by European Journal of Cancer.
According to the authors, the prognostic significance of p53 aberration in hepatocellular carcinoma, or cancer of the liver, remains inconclusive. Their analysis aimed to provide comprehensive evidence on the association of p53 alterations with recurrence-free survival and overall survival in hepatocellular carcinoma patients. They conducted systematic literature searches up to July 2010. Then they performed meta-analysis to estimate prognostic effects of p53 alterations on patient outcomes in hepatocellular carcinoma. Finally they conducted the sensitivity and subgroup analyses in the meta-analysis. They found that tumor p53 alterations were associated significantly with poor patient outcomes in hepatocellular carcinoma.
“Hepatocellular carcinoma patients with p53 mutation and upregulated expression in tumor tissue have a shorter overall survival and recurrence-free survival than patients with wild type p53 and low/undetectable p53 expression. However, the prognostic value of serum anti-p53 antibody is required to be further examined,” Wu said.
The paper was co-written with Qingyong Ma lab at Xi’an Jiaotong University, China. “Collaborating with Dr. Ma, we together would like to find better cancer therapeutics and elucidate the mechanisms of the targeted therapy for gastrointestinal cancer such as hepatocellular carcinoma and pancreatic carcinoma,” Wu said.
The European Journal of Cancer is an international oncology journal that publishes original research, editorial comments, review articles and news on basic and preclinical research, clinical oncology (medical, pediatric, radiation, surgical), translational oncology, cancer epidemiology and prevention.
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